KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Ar­genti­na wants to ex­port its world-renowned beef to T&T.

That’s ac­cord­ing to Am­bas­sador Gus­ta­vo Mar­tinez Pan­di­ani, who made the com­ment while speak­ing dur­ing the Ar­gen­tine Na­tion­al Day event at the Clu­b­room, Re­nais­sance at Shore­lands, Glen­coe, Care­nage, on Ju­ly 9.

Pan­di­ani, who di­rect­ed his state­ment to the Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials present—then-act­ing Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Bar­ry Padarath, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Ravi Rat­ti­ram and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath—said once ap­proved, beef would join the list of oth­er items al­ready ex­port­ed to T&T like soy­bean oil, med­ica­tion, dried chick­peas and wines.

In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian af­ter­wards, Pan­di­ani said an of­fi­cial re­quest for the im­por­ta­tion of Ar­gen­tine beef to this coun­try has been for­mal­ly pre­sent­ed and it is be­ing con­sid­ered.

“The Ar­gen­tine Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain is work­ing to­geth­er with the min­istries of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs and Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries,” he said.

“Many pri­vate traders, who are very in­ter­est­ed in hav­ing our meat prod­ucts in lo­cal su­per­mar­kets, ho­tels and restau­rants, are al­so col­lab­o­rat­ing with the ini­tia­tive.”

Am­bas­sador Pan­di­ani al­so high­light­ed Ar­genti­na’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Tradewinds 25 ex­er­cise in T&T. The an­nu­al ex­er­cise, fo­cused on Caribbean se­cu­ri­ty, in­clud­ed forces from 26 part­ner and al­lied na­tions, in­clud­ing the Ar­gen­tine Air Force.

“This year, for the first time in his­to­ry, Ar­genti­na par­tic­i­pat­ed in the re­gion­al ex­er­cise. For the first time in his­to­ry, Ar­genti­na sent a plane filled with troops,” he said.

With the Ar­gen­tine foot­ball team cur­rent­ly hold­ing on to their third FI­FA World Cup ti­tle, Am­bas­sador Pan­di­ani al­so of­fered as­sis­tance from Ar­gen­tine coach­es to the T&T team, while ask­ing for help in re­turn for the Ar­gen­tine crick­et team.

He said from Feb­ru­ary to April, 2025, T&T was in­clud­ed in the Ar­gen­tine-Caribbean Youth Foot­ball: Train­ing of Train­ers Pro­gramme in part­ner­ship with the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU).

Padarath, who de­liv­ered re­marks, said there were many times cit­i­zens of T&T claimed Ar­gen­tine cit­i­zen­ship be­cause of foot­ball—hav­ing grown up see­ing the likes of Diego Maradona and Li­onel Mes­si.

“I would like to recog­nise our own lit­tle ma­gi­cian right here, none oth­er than Rus­sell Lat­apy,” he said, ac­knowl­edg­ing the for­mer dy­nam­ic T&T mid­field­er and cur­rent as­sis­tant T&T coach who was amongst the guests.

Min­is­ter Padarath point­ed out Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and he shared a favourite song—Don’t Cry for Me Ar­genti­na, record­ed by Julie Cov­ing­ton for the 1976 al­bum Evi­ta—with the sto­ry of the late Eva Perón res­onat­ing with them.

“The jour­ney of Evo Perón and Juan Car­los in the his­to­ry of Ar­genti­na con­tin­ues to be a sym­bol of tri­umph, but it con­tin­ues to be a sym­bol that in­spires so many oth­er world lead­ers re­gard­less of whether they hold po­lit­i­cal ti­tle or not be­cause of the act of self­less­ness in ser­vice.”

Am­bas­sador Pan­di­ani took the of­fi­cial promise from two young Ar­gen­tine cit­i­zens re­sid­ing in T&T—Gas­par Pereira and Han­nah Con­stan­tine—dur­ing the Pledge to the Ar­gen­tine Flag.

This is a cer­e­mo­ny where in­di­vid­u­als, typ­i­cal­ly stu­dents, ex­press their com­mit­ment and loy­al­ty to the na­tion—a tra­di­tion­al event held an­nu­al­ly on June 20, Flag Day, in Ar­genti­na, ho­n­our­ing Gen­er­al Manuel Bel­gra­no, the cre­ator of the flag.

The event fea­tured gui­tarist Ste­fan Roach, who is known for his fla­men­co cords and EVP Dance Acad­e­my mem­bers De­lano Manganoo, Anique Bar­ran and Den­era Kara­math, who per­formed the clas­si­cal tan­go.